After months of listening to telephone companies, water districts and disability-rights advocates criticize a plan to cut off power to parts of San Diego County during fire weather, state regulators are set to hear from the public.

The California Public Utilities Commission will consider opinions from residents this week on whether to approve a controversial proposal that San Diego Gas & Electric says will reduce the risk of fire when the weather is dry and windy.

“Everybody's worried about it,” said Lisa Darroch, a Jamul mother who is worried about children being in school without power or communication on hot days. “What's going to happen to our kids?”

Darroch plans to testify at a hearing in Alpine on Tuesday night. A second hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Valley Center

Power would not likely be cut to all the fire-prone areas at once, but only in areas where risk is the highest, SDG&E spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan said. That would translate to one or two power shut-offs a year, affecting about 10,000 homes and businesses, she said.

Visitors to SDG&E's Web site will be able to monitor conditions at 17 weather stations, each corresponding to an area of the county facing shut-off, Donovan said.

Power would be cut when the National Weather Service declares a red-flag warning; humidity is below 21 percent; moisture in dead plants is 10 percent or less and in living plants 75 percent or less; and sustained winds are above 34 mph or are gusting above 54 mph, with sustained winds above 29 mph.

The shut-offs, lasting up to 72 hours, are needed to prevent power lines from arcing in high winds and sparking massive wildfires of the sort that swept through the county in 2003 and 2007, Donovan said.

SDG&E is lobbying for regulatory approval; executives visited PUC officials in San Francisco last week to tout the plan.

Opponents have raised a variety of concerns in recent filings with the PUC.

School officials said they would have to cancel classes if they don't have electricity. Disability advocates said people who rely on power for medical equipment would have health problems.

Water districts warned they would be unable to pump water for firefighters, and recalled how Ramona residents were not allowed back home for a week after the 2007 fires because a crucial pumping station lacked power.

AT&T said cell phone and land-line service would be lost after a few hours – even outside the affected area – as backup batteries run out of juice. And cable companies said people would lose a link to the outside world, television and the Internet.

All of them said they would face increased costs as a result of SDG&E's proposals, whether from spending millions of dollars for diesel-powered generators or, in the case of schools, losing state funds because students miss class.